Frederick Stops was a widower when he married Emily Tilley on 10th July 1867, his occupation listed then simply as Clerk. On 29th July 1868 when he registered the birth of his daughter Emily Frederica to his wife Emily Stops nee Tilley at Hobart, his occupation was listed as Clerk to Attorney-General . His son William Joshua Tilley Stops (W.J.T. Stops), who was born two years later on 26th May 1870, would become the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania and the owner of the photograph of Melville St under snow taken by Thomas Nevin in 1868.

Last entry on page, 26th June 1868:Birth of Emily Frederica to Emily Stops nee Tilley and Frederick Stops, Clerk to Attorney-GeneralTAHO Ref: NAME_INDEXES:971690

Frederick Stops and photographer Thomas Nevin were well acquainted for several reasons, the first being the dissolution of Thomas Nevin's partnership with Robert Smith operating as the firm "Nevin & Smith" in February 1868 which was underwritten by Frederick Stops' employer and Nevin's family solicitor, the Hon. W R. Giblin, Attorney-General.

Dissolution notice published in The Mercury on 26 February 1868 of the partnership between Robert Smith and Thomas Nevin. William Robert Giblin, later Attorney-General and Premier, was Thomas Nevin's solicitor and witness.

The second reason was their work on prisoner records. Thomas Nevin was granted government contracts with the Land and Survey Department in the same year, 1868 as his partnership with Smith was dissolved by the Hon. W. R. Giblin and commenced the systematic photographing of prisoners for the Attorney-General in 1872, assisted by Frederick Stops in his capacity as the Clerk to the A-G, (see William Clemo's prison record below). Thomas Nevin also worked with solicitor John Woodcock Graves jnr, and barrister Robert Byron Miller in the Supreme Court and Mayor's Court, Hobart Town Hall. A third reason was more personal. When Frederick Stops married Emily Tilley on 10th July, 1867 at St David's, Hobart, their witnesses included Josiah Pocock, the brother of Rachael Day nee Pocock, She died in 1857 of consumption, leaving a widower, master mariner Captain James Day and two daughters, Mary Sophia Day (b. 1853) and Elizabeth Rachel Day (b. 1847). By July 1868, Thomas Nevin was courting Elizabeth Rachel Day, and would have counted her uncle Josiah Pocock and Frederick Stops among their circle of friends by the time they married in July 1871. Whatever it was about July in Hobart that was so favoured by this generation, it cannot have been a wish for warm weather.

In the same month as Emily Frederica was born to Frederick and Emily Stops in July 1868, Thomas Nevin took this photograph of Melville Street on a day of heavy snowfall which he exhibited at the Wellington Park Exhibition, Hobart. It was reproduced in the publication Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 1995:82).

The verso of this photograph carries Thomas Nevin's most common commercial studio stamp and the wording "This by W. J. T. Stops Esq."which suggests that the photograph was presented to Frederick Stops by Nevin in 1868, perhaps as a gift to Emily Stops on the birth of their daughter, and was then passed down to his son W. J. T. Stops, who subsequently donated it to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from the Stops estate or even from the University archives (Royal Society Collection) where more of Nevin’s photographs are held. It was then inscribed by an archivist on accession with the note - "This by W.J.T. Stops Esq".

MR. FREDERICK STOPS.
We regret to announce the death at his residence, Garstons, Patrick-street, yester-day, of Mr. Frederick Stops, possibly the last survivor of the earlier age of civil servants, at the advanced age of 92 years. Ho joined the Law Department on his arrival from England in 1855, and retired from it as its permanent head 40 years later, receiving on his retirement, addresses from the Southern Law Society and from the rural municipalities in acknowledgement of the assistance those bodies had received during his long period of service. Mr. Stops's memory will be kept green in legal and municipal circles by his editions of the Tasmanian statutes, the first of which he published in 1885, and the second, bringing the Acts up to the end of the reign of Queen Victoria, in 1900. This was really his life's work, for he published two indices to the Statute Law, which was in a chaotic condition, in 1860 and 1864, and these were subsequently enlarged in the editions of statutes so well known and much used in the world of law.
Outside his office, Mr. Stops was of a retiring disposition, and took little part in public affairs, but he was a territorial justice, a governor of the Kennerley Boys' Home, and was for 25 years, until the burden of years compelled his retirement, a churchwarden of Holy Trinity. His wife predeceased him, and he leaves a daughter, well known in Church of England circles for philanthropic work, and two sons, Mr. W. J. T. Stops, Vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and Mr. F. N. Stops, Police Magistrate for the North- Western division.
'The funeral will take place at Cornelian Bay cemetery to-morrow morning.

SIR ELLIOTT''S REGRET.

"A RIGHT-HAND MAN."
Sir Elliott Lewis last evening expressed deep regret at the passing of Mr. Stops, and made fine reference to the work he carried out in the Attorney-General's Department. "He was a man for whom I had the deepest respect," said Sir Elliott Lewis, "and as a young Attorney-General he was extraordinarily helpful to me. The consolidation of the statutes, when he produced them, was a marvel of industry, care, and thoroughness. When I was Attorney-General in 1892 he was everything in that office. He was certainly the Attorney-General's right-hand man. He was draftsman of all the Acts of those days, and did the whole of the secretarial work practically alone. He drew up all the informations for the Criminal Court, and generally was a most conscientious and reliable officer."

Thomas Nevin, Frederick Stops and the Prisoner Photographs
Although this record of prisoner William "Clocky" Clemo is included in the Port Arthur Conduct Register for the years 1868-1869, further information about Clemo was inscribed on the second page pertaining to his conduct after he was transferred to the Hobart Gaol in 1873. He was discharged from the Hobart Gaol in the week ending 10th February, 1875. His name does not appear in the Port Arthur Conduct Register for the years 1873-1876 (TAHO Ref: CON94-1-2) because he was not at Port Arthur in those years. The second page of Clemo's record (below) was signed on the 17th March, 1874 by Frederick Stops, Clerk to the Attorney-General who contracted Thomas Nevin to photograph prisoners on arraignment and discharge. Frederick Stops and Thomas Nevin collaborated on collating information on prisoner records, both visual and written into the 1880s. This is Nevin's photograph of William Clemo, transported to Tasmania on the ship Equestrian 3 in 1852, sentenced to 7 yrs for “carnally assaulting a child under 12 years” in 1868 at the Supreme Court, Hobart:

Saturday, September 12, 2015

This collection of police mugshots - originally taken at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. Hobart and at the Mayor's Court, Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall, by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin from 1872-1886 - was donated from government estrays in 1964. Full records with T. J. Nevin's attribution are held at the NLA, Sprod Papers NLA MS 2320. The National Library of Australia has recently updated its digital software, yet the versos of these photographs, which can provide researchers with valuable information. have not been digitised. The NLA believes that the absence of a photographer's studio stamp on the versos - of police mugshots no less - is reason enough to engage in puerile political games of re-attribution, despite expert curatorial validation, and Nevin's government contract stamp on several of these mugshots held in other national collections. The versos of the majority of these photographs were incorrectly transcribed in 1915-1916 with the wording "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" to promote penal heritage tourism to Tasmania when they were sent as exhibits to the Royal Hotel, Sydney, in conjunction with an exhibition of convictaria on the fake transport ship, the Success, which toured Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide before returning to Sydney. The majority of the 85 mugshots in the NLA collection consists of copies either duplicated from the originals - or missing from - the collections held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston.

Offline and viewed in situ at the National Library of Australia in the plastic folder sleeves and pockets (see examples below) in which they are housed, these very old 1870s and 1880s photographs of Tasmanian prisoners lose a good deal of their visual appeal which they otherwise seem to project when enlarged and digitised for online viewing. The staff at the National Library of Australia readily protest that these photographs are prized as unique artefacts when confronted with criticism about the way they are treating their collection. Yet the plastic pockets - which are not the celluloid pockets used for other photographs in their collections - are contributing to the decay of these photographs and is clear evidence that the NLA staff prefer to dissemble, at times even respond with aggression when called out. Likewise, the manner in which the NLA staff since 2007 have compromised government contractor Thomas J. Nevin's historically correct attribution as the commercial photographer of these mugshots with baseless tourist propaganda from Port Arthur employees playing the events-of-1996 sympathy card, is inflicting damage of another kind to the nation's cultural memory which these photographs inform. They should at the very least receive mature and professional treatment, but Australia's cultural heritage, it seems in this instance, is not necessarily immune from abuse by the very public institution entrusted to preserve it.

The inscriptions on the verso of these cartes-de-visite duplicates - "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874" - together with the convict's name and ship on which he was transported have nothing to do with the "belief" published by Chris Long in 1995 (TMAG) that A. H. Boyd, Commandant at Port Arthur until December 1873, was the photographer of these Tasmanian prisoners. A. H. Boyd was not a photographer by any definition of the term, and had nothing to do with the production of these mugshots which were produced by government contractor T. J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. Hobart. The inscriptions on verso and recto about Port Arthur, and the date "1874" were fabrications by archivists and/or copyists such as Edward Searle and John Watt Beattie who sold them to tourists in his "Port Arthur Museum" in Hobart, and date from the 1890s-1920s. His reproductions and montages of these 1870s mugshots of Tasmanian prisoners - touted as "Port Arthur convicts"- were displayed on the fake convict ship, the Success, during visits to Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Sydney.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Lawyers, barristers, magistrates, politicians, police superintendents, detectives, their families and their prisoners were photographed by Thomas J. Nevin from the late 1860s to the 1880s. As government contractor from 1868 to the legal fraternity and the Hobart City Council, Thomas Nevin's photographs of people are especially interesting because of his access to all social classes of the British colony of Tasmania which he had entered in 1852 as the ten year-old child of soldier, journalist, teacher and poet, John Nevin snr.

Several photographs taken by Thomas Nevin of the families of government official Lukin Boyes, barrister Robert Byron Miller, and solicitor John Woodcock Graves jnr,of Caldew, West Hobart, have survived in public and private collections. This group was photographed at Adventure Bay on 31st January 1872. .One copy is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Another copy was retained in a family album by Jean Porthouse Graves, the eldest daughter of John Woodcock Graves jnr. who is pictured reclining at extreme lower left.

One of four extant photographs taken on 31st January 1872 and printed in various formats from Thomas J. Nevin's series advertised in The Mercury, 2nd February, 1872, as the Colonists' Trip to Adventure Bay (Bruny Island).

Thomas Nevin reprinted this group photograph of John Woodcock Graves jnr and company as an oval stereograph on a buff mount, with his blindstamp impress on recto at centre between the two images. This copy is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

One of four extant photographs and duplicates in various formats from Thomas J. Nevin's series advertised in The Mercury 2nd February, 1872, as the Colonists' Trip to Adventure Bay (Bruny Island), taken on 31st January 1872:
[From lower left]: John Woodcock Graves jnr, solicitor; his daughter Jean Porthouse Graves; above her, R. Byron Miller, barrister; on her left, Sir John O'Shanassy, former Premier of Victoria;
[Centre top]: Lukin Boyes, son of auditor and artist G. T. W. Boyes, leaning on stone structure
[Extreme lower right]: James Erskine Calder, former Surveyor-General, Tasmania
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.5 [scan 2015]

At Caldew, West Hobart, Tasmania

Group portrait of two male adults, one boy and three girls, members of the Graves, Miller and Boyes family taken by Thomas Nevin ca. 1870 at Caldew, West Hobart.
Stereograph in arched mount on yellow card
TMAG Ref: Q16826.10

Possible identification as follows:
Frederick Lukin Boyes: the boy seated on the grass who died in 1881, aged 16 yrs, son of Lukin Boyes.
Lukin Boyes, Customs Officer: the man seated on right in light clothing who is patting a goat or deer.
Jean Porthouse Graves (born 1858): the teenage girl sitting next to Lukin Boyes, daughter of John Woodcock Graves jnr (not pictured here).
Robert Byron Miller, barrister: sitting on the same bench, whose son Francis Knowles Miller later married Jean Porthouse Graves.
Two more of John Woodcock Graves four daughters: the two other girls, one sitting on a chair at extreme left, and the other seated on the grass, were possibly Mimi (born 1862), Trucaninni (1864) or Mathinna (born 1859). The latter two were given Aboriginal names at birth.

Possible location:
Two tall thin metal statues of a beggar and a harlequin flank the group on either side. Their significance and provenance is not known. Perhaps they were cast by a local sculptor for private decorative use, or they may have featured as props in a theatrical production, or even confiscated by Lukin Boyes at the Customs and Tariff Office. But it is the lion statue which is the focal point at the foreground of the image. It belonged to John Woodcock Graves' family of Caldew, West Hobart. A later photograph taken of Jean Porthouse Graves ca. 1877 shows it placed near the doorway of the house (see below). This stereograph taken by Thomas Nevin and the one immediately below it were possibly taken on the same day, ca. 1870 and in the same location, at the back of Caldew when West Hobart was still a sparse "wilderness" (see newspaper accounts below).

Verso: Group portrait of two male adults, one boy and three girls, members of the Graves, Miller and Boyes family taken by Thomas Nevin ca. 1870 at Caldew, West Hobart.
Stereograph in arched mount on yellow card
TMAG Ref: Q16826.10

The back of the photograph above was stuck to the front of this photograph below, i.e. the stereographs had been kept one on the top of the other, front up. When someone separated the top one from this one placed underneath, they tore off a strip of the left hand image, notably the detail of a house in the background. Both photographs feature the same man in a white hat, probably R. Byron Miller, and because they were stored together, they were most likely taken on the same day and in the same location.

As above, Robert Byron Miller again in a white hat and one of the daughters of John Woodcock Graves, possibly Jean Porthouse Graves, seated on a log, at the back of some cottages with a deer, a cow and a dog. The deer licked her face and the dog rolled just as Nevin took the photograph, resulting in a blur. The location is possibly the back garden of Caldew, West Hobart. A semi-circular remnant of the front of the stereograph below (TMAG Ref: Q16826.21) has stuck to the verso on separation.

Verso: Robert Byron Miller again in a white hat and one of the daughters of John Woodcock Graves, possibly Jean Porthouse Graves, seated on a log, at the back of some cottages with a deer, a cow and a dog. The deer licked her face and the dog rolled just as Nevin took the photograph, resulting in a blur.The location is possibly the back garden of Caldew, West Hobart. A semi-circular remnant of the front of the stereograph below (TMAG Ref: Q16826.21) has stuck to the verso on separation.Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1870Stereograph in arched mount on yellow cardTMAG Ref: Q16826.21 [2015]

Included in Jean Porthouse Graves' family album is this photograph of the same location as the stereograph above, showing a wider view of the cottages and the paddock where Thomas Nevin had photographed Byron Miller with one of the Graves' sisters, together with the deer, the cow and the dog. Jean Porthouse Graves had pasted this photograph into her album with the words " Raw country original photograph arrival convicts". This photograph was taken at some distance, giving a view of the hills and one or two substantial residences, but the cottages in the foreground are the same, and the animal enclosure at the corner of the fence, visible in the stereograph above, is discernible at lower right.

The Lion Sculpture
Here again is the lion sculpture greeting visitors on the steps of Caldew, first photographed by Thomas Nevin ca. 1870 as a stereograph (above) with Byron Miller, Lukin Boyes, Frederick Boyes, and sisters Jean, Matte, and Truca Graves. This photograph (below) was taken of Jean Porthouse Graves about seven years later, noted as "self" along the edge of the page on which it was pasted in her family album. She stood in the doorway of Caldew ca. 1877, gazing directly at the photographer. Her father, solicitor John Woodcock Graves jnr by this time was deceased. He had died suddenly in 1876 of congestion of the lungs and pneumonia, leaving a widow, pictured here seated in the doorway and four daughters. Listed as present here by Jean are two of her sisters, Trucaninni (Truca) and Mathinna (Matte), with their father's former colleagues R. Byron Miller standing next to Jean, and Lukin Boyes, seated with one of the Graves' daughters. Lukin Boyes was a witness at the marriage of John Woodcock Graves to Jessie Montgomerie in 1857.

Reminiscences of Caldew, West Hobart
During the early to mid 1900s the Mercury published a series of reminiscences of former residents at West Hobart who not only commented on the wilderness aspect of the area during the time the family of John Woodcock Graves jnr lived at the house he built there, named Caldew, they also remembered the sporting events he mounted, the native animals and the deer he brought to the property, and the relics of colonial times amassed by old Mr John Woodcock Graves senior, renowned as the author of the song "D'ye Ken John Peel".

The Mercury 10 February 1936

TRANSCRIPT

LANSDOWNE CRESCENT
Mr. Gourlay has a retentive memory, and recalls many features of old Hobart. "In my early days," he said in an interview, "the Lansdowne Crescent district was an open space. Only about 11 houses could be seen, the principal ones being that of Mr. Piguenit, the father of the well-known artist, and Caldew, where lived the lawyer, J. W. Graves, son of the poet, John Woodcock Graves, who lived in Forest Road, and whom I knew well. I remember when the lawyer Graves, with Walton and Whitton conducted horse racing on his property.
Annual sports were also held on the ground. Mr. Joseph Moir had almost all the Crescent in big fields. He had great farm buildings between what is now Allison Street and the Crescent Road as far as Pine Streeet. I clearly remember hay making and harvesting, and putting the hay into the big barns."

WILDERNESS TO THRIVING SUBURB
When the late Mr. J. A. Cuthbertson was a boy, Mr. John Woodcock Graves and his confreres used to hunt deer along Lansdowne Crescent and the wilds of Knocklofty, and he often used to recall the stirring sight which the red-coated huntsmen and their hounds made. In those days, of course, West Hobart was little better than a wilderness, and even when Mr. Cuthbertson was grown to manhood it consisted of nothing more than paddocks and bare hills. A great event which used to be held was the West Hobart sports, which were held on a spot not far from the Crescent, and a feature of them used to be calf races, in which youngsters of the district rode calves along a course.

The Mercury Illustrated 10 October 1929

TRANSCRIPT

CALDEW
For some years Graves lived with his son, J. W. Graves, solicitor, at Caldew, Cavell Street, West Hobart, now the home of ex-Alderman J. A. Cuthbertson. Before it was built over the property was of considerable extent, and was stocked by J. W. Graves junior with native animals, such as kangaroos, emus, wallabies, opossum and some English game. In the garden is still to be seen the cage built for the pheasants, and the stables are still in good order. On the walls, under the paper, are hunting scenes sketched by the old man, and doubtless having reference to the Hobart Hunt Club, which was founded by the son, and used to meet there. When old St. David's Cathedral was pulled down he took the rims of the old clock, measuring about eight feet across, and put them round his flower beds, where they are still to be seen The father's fondness for animal life led him to bring the sparrow to Tasmania. He thought it was the hedge-sparrow, but it turned out to be the house-sparrow, and has not failed to increase and multiply in the land. He also brought foxes, but happily the danger was sensed in time, and they were killed. A photograph of the house taken many years ago shows the old verandah with posts of Huon pine, but otherwise there are few changes to be noted in the illustration on this page showing Caldew as it stands today. Mr. Cuthbertson took over many relics and papers with the estate. There is an evening slipper bearing within it the name of Lady Franklin.

The last photograph
This is an enduring image of Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Truganini (var. Trucanini) photographed with John Woodcock Graves jnr shortly before her death, aged 73 yrs, on 8th May 1876. He died six months later, aged 47 yrs, on 30th October 1876.

Search

In his own words ...

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.The Mercury, 4 December 1880

"Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)"The Mercury, 11 August 1886

"Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision."The Mercury, 19 July 1888.

Biography: Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

Recent Posts

Our Fourteenth Anniversary 2019

Fourteen years ago (before 2005 actually) we started blogging about Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923). We look forward to another two years at least as the project draws closer to completion. Contributions and donations are most welcome, and many thanks for your involvement.

Notices

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

Our stats show heavy and repeated downloads pertaining to Nevin's prison photography. Please consult your institution's guidelines on student plagiarism and Amendments to the Copyright Act 2000. Every version of an article and image is printed and stored at the publishers. Take care to consult the URL of the post/article you wish to cite, especially if you are using RSS, caches, and readers as every entry is subject to UPDATING at any time. Do not make hard copies. Librarians please note: do not archive as preserved pages. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.